The final episode of ITV1's long-running documentary series Up will air on Tuesday at 9pm, bringing to a close 62 years of returning to the same group of Britons first filmed as seven-year-olds in 1964. The new instalment, 70 Up, catches up with the participants now that they have reached that age.
It is the first film in the series made without its director, Michael Apted, who died in 2021. Every episode has opened with the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man," the premise Apted set out to test by returning to the same 14 people every seven years since 1964.
A study of Britain's class system
The series was originally conceived as an examination of the British class system, and the children were chosen from a cross-section of society. They included three girls and a boy from London's East End, a girl from a wealthier part of London, two boys from a children's home, four public schoolboys, a Yorkshire farmer's son and two boys from a middle-class Liverpool suburb.
Bruce Balden looks back
Bruce Balden was at boarding school when he was chosen for the programme, and he went on to become a teacher. "I do see myself in that seven-year-old," he says. "I don't know whether some aspects of my character are immutable or I've changed. But I see a rather lost soul. I want to reassure him that it will be a ride, but life is going to be all right."
As a seven-year-old, Bruce just wanted to see his father, who was a soldier in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. In the new episode he reads a poem in which his father explains his feelings for his son. "He missed me as much as I missed him," Bruce says. "If I'd known, I'd have made more of an effort to make up for lost time."
Jackie Bassett's life since 1964
East End girl Jackie Bassett was picked for the programme because "I wouldn't stop talking. In our house, if you didn't speak up you didn't get heard. I don't think I've changed."
She married at 19, divorced, remarried, moved to Scotland, had three children, divorced again and became a single mother. "Things could have been better, but things could have been a lot worse," she says. "There are points in my life that I would rather not have happened. The only thing I do wish is that I'd gone on to do more education."
Lynn, Nick and Neil
Not everyone in the group has lived to see the final episode. Jackie's fellow East Ender Lynn died in 2013, and Yorkshire-born Nick, who became a nuclear scientist, died just three days after filming for the 70 Up episode.
Liverpudlian Neil has led the most chaotic life of the group. He was homeless by the time of 28 Up, living in a council house by 35 Up, and had a brief marriage that had ended by 63 Up. He now lives in France and thinks he has probably always suffered from depression.
Mixed feelings about a lifetime on camera
Most of the participants have appeared in every episode, but some have missed instalments, dropped out or been unhappy with how they were portrayed. Public schoolboy and lawyer John Brisby felt he had been "set up to represent an outmoded class system that had no validity in the modern world."
Bruce, however, says he has no complaints. "Some reality TV now is very contrived," he says. "We had none of that. It was just, 'Tell us what you're doing, where you're at, what you're interested in.'"
"I've been asked if being on the programme has affected my choices, and I can't say it has. I've no regrets. I take pride in being part of what's turned out to be a social document about Britain."
70 Up airs Tuesday at 9pm on ITV1.
